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? The magus of space... Wait, no, that sounds too much like the sort of title they give to the expert architects in those home remodeling shows.
In the original text, Andou fairly explicitly references a very specific Japanese home remodeling program! The show, which is titled Daikaizou! Gekiteki Before After (or, according to the English featured on its logo, That’S a DRAMATIC CHANGE!) focuses on the remodeling of old, run-down, or otherwise inconvenient homes. Each episode opens with an introduction of the home and its inhabitants, explaining the problem the inhabitants have with the home and how it impacts and worsens their lives. Then, once the stakes are established, the show brings in an expert to remodel the home and solve all its inhabitants’ woes.
The experts in question are where the connection to Andou’s little ramble come into play, on account of the fact that the show gives each one a dramatic intro shot of them walking up toward the house, complete with a title card and the show’s theme music (which sounds like a track straight out of a JRPG and is titled, I kid you not, “Inscrutable Battle.” Seriously, I’m not making that up—it’s easy to find on YouTube and I highly recommend that you do so). They’re also given titles that somehow reflect their specialties, and those titles are, if I may say so myself, extremely chuuni. Examples include “The Wizard of Light,” “The Heir of Ancient Knowledge,” and “The Adventurer of the Third Dimension.” It’s all just so gloriously extra, and Andou isn’t wrong in the sense that the first title he comes up with for Chifuyu would fit right in among their ranks.
? I based it, of course, off the words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: panta rhei, that is, “everything flows”!
When Andou says ancient Greek, he means it: Heraclitus lived in the sixth century BC, and as a natural result, what little we know about him is vague and unreliable, taken largely from the questionably sourced writings of the biographer Diogenes Laërtius (not to be confused with Diogenes the Cynic, ancient Greece’s most notorious trash-gremlin). His work has been largely lost to time as well, with the only remaining instances of his writings being quotations found in the work of other philosophers, many of whom apparently found his ideas to be obscure and confusing even way back then.
? ...the final paradise of the soul, Tír na nÓg!
Tír na nÓg is one of the many names for a sort of afterlife as represented in Irish mythology. I say “a sort of afterlife” because it’s not really that simple—it’s more of a mythical realm populated by gods and legendary heroes, though, of course, the specifics vary from legend to legend. One has to assume that Andou chose to reference it largely because it has a very cool name.
? That’s canon, by the way—it’s in a fan book called FMA Research Lab DX.
It really is! The fan book in question was written by Arakawa Hiromu, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, but it has never been published in English in any capacity and is rather hard to get ahold of these days. What few excerpts of its content can be found online show that it contains interviews, question and answer sections, character profiles, and a bunch of silly sketch comics featuring characters from the series.
? ...and Natsu Dragneel didn’t eat his own fire as well.
Natsu Dragneel is a main character in Fairy Tail, a Weekly Shonen Magazine manga by Mashima Hiro. Natsu is a mage with fire-themed powers who can replenish his energy by consuming fire, unless he’s the one who made it.
? Make like Doraemon with his Time Cloth and zap it till it’s good as new!
The Time Cloth (or possibly Time Kerchief, if you’re watching the anime dubbed) is a classic gadget from Doraemon! It allows the user to fast-forward or rewind the timeline of whatever they happen to lay it on, enabling all sorts of wacky shenanigans and mishaps—or enabling the user to fix broken stuff, if you’re being practical about it.
? ...I found myself screaming at it to “Just heat up already!” with all the passion of former tennis player turned motivational speaker Matsuoka Shuzou.
After retiring from the pro tennis world in 1998, Matsuoka Shuzou moved on to being a sports commentator, then he started releasing his now iconic series of motivational videos in the mid ’00s. The videos are characterized by Matsuoka’s almost aggressive enthusiasm and positivity, as well as the sometimes inexplicable settings he films them in (with one particularly well-known example involving him delivering a motivational speech while collecting clams in subfreezing ocean water—search “Matsuoka Shuzou never give up” on YouTube if you want to see it for yourself). Needless to say, the videos became instant meme-bait, with clips and remixes of Matsuoka’s speeches circulating on Nico Nico ever since. To his credit, Matsuoka seems to have taken his internet fame in stride and has pretty much just kept doing his thing.
? I’m sorry, I missed the part where we became a Kagerou Project spin-off!
Kagerou Project is a mixed-media franchise that began with a series of Vocaloid songs composed by a music producer known as Jin! The series began with a song called “Jinzou Enemy,” but is most commonly known for its third song and the series’ namesake, “Kagerou Daze.”
Summarizing the story of Kagerou Project even in short form is, frankly, way beyond the scope of this notes section, in no small part on account of the fact that as of the moment I’m writing this, it spans a bare minimum of twenty (arguably upward of thirty) songs, eight novels, thirteen volumes of manga, and an anime, all of which—as Andou alludes to—drift in and out of different continuities and feature mutually exclusive endings and plot developments...and that’s not even starting on the fan-made content!
The story involves eye-based superpowers, a hyperadvanced AI of dubious origins, multiple time loops, oodles of trauma, and at least one monster straight out of Greek mythology. If I’m making it sound both unapproachable and like, well, a lot, that’s because it honestly kind of is, but I’d still definitely recommend taking a look if any of this sounds intriguing to you. I highly recommend giving “Kagerou Daze” a listen, at the absolute least—it’s a certifiable classic in the Vocaloid scene, and also a bop.
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